Description

P-1 start at a left-leaning dihedral which gains a ledge. Negotiate some brush then head up a right-leaning layback, over a small roof (pretty stiff for .7) and to a tree belay stance, flake for anchor.

P-2 Climb up and right to an arete with nice jams and gear to a wild roof move (lieback) and another 20 or so feet to a belay.

P-3 Up and right to a stem/face. Crack comes and go and with it a little run-out. A welcome fixed piton and more moves leads to a bolted belay out right.

P-4 Follow fins up and right to a small bulge. (for some reason, someone put a bolt right where there's some good gear. Nice 3/4 placement) Follow up and right (more bolts?) to a belay at the bottom of a large flake. Fourth class leads to the summit.

Location

Getting down is fine, but do it in the light. Your goal, once getting down sandy ledges and brushy slopes is to aim for a notch to the South. (Think Mountaineers route on Whitney but in reverse) Follow this along the base of the El Segundo Butt and back to your packs.

P1, as described above and shown in the croft topo, took 2 pitches for us due to rope drag. Liebacking the corner will certainly make it feel harder than 5.7. Jamming it straight in was pretty cruiser. After the crux roof on P2, it is easy to get off-route by following the thin hollow flake up and left to a nice bolted belay. I believe this is part of the route Chortle, 5.10b. Decently protected knob and slab climbing (5.10a/b) leads up and left past 7? or more bolts (1/4" buttonheads, in good condition) to a bolted belay out left. Realizing I was in more difficult terrain, I was able to manage an escape right after 6? bolts to regain the bolted anchor atop P3 of the Beckey Route, on the sloping ledge as described above. The upper pitches have some spicy runouts on 5.8 ground with some route finding; I can't say I'd recommend this one for a noobie 5.9 leader.

All in all, a great outing, varied and classic at the grade. If you start by climbing the Premier Route on the Premier Buttress, it makes for an incredible full day of climbing (~11 pitches). Bring walk off shoes! We didn't, and it sucked bigtime.

Good route, the slab 4th pitch was a nice cherry, save for the rivet! Replace all bolts, place one next to a crack but don't replace the rivet? I wonder the logic. Regardless, thanks for the new bolts, there's a few spicy moves.

P1 - We split this into two pitches as suggested above, since the party before us had brutal rope drag and had to belay below the overhang. This worked fine, but I bet you could do it in one pitch, without too much drag, if you run the rope to the right of the big bushes on the ledge. Depending on your hand size, the corner may be easier to jam, layback, or even face climb to the left in places.

P2 - I thought that the moves around the arete into the small crack were harder/more committing than the roof, but it probably depends on your height and skill set. There is a fixed pin right before the roof and good pro in the roof itself. Make sure you have some finger sized gear for the belay at the end of the pitch.

P3 - Delicate climbing with intermittent pro.

P4 - Either some bolts have been chopped, or the above count is off. There are currently two bolts before the 5.8 bulge, not three. I was able to set a good, tiny brass offset about halfway before the first bolt, which made the runout less scary. After the bulge, there are three bolts and a rivet, not five bolts. I missed the rivet, which is between the first two bolts on this section, and almost blew it big time when a foothold broke right before the second bolt. I was on some flakey holds, a little off-route to the left of the line. You should go up and right from the first bolt to get to the rivet, even though it's steeper, less featured climbing. Hopefully, someone will replace the rivet with a real bolt in the future.

P5 - We came up a little short with a 60m rope and had to do a mini pitch to get to the summit ledge. A 70m would likely reach without any problem.

Descent - We traversed too far left (facing downhill) on the descent and ended coming down a gully between Premier Buttress and the Roadwork Wall. This worked out ok, but it probably would have been better if we had cut back right at some point and found the correct gully between Premier and El Segundo.

Climbed this in 2005, before the new guide book. On pitch 2 we did the obvious corner to roof traverse that takes off straight above the belay. With micro nuts and nut tool to clean the placements, it takes just enough pro. Goes at about 5.9 PG with the roof being fairly committing.

On P3, we also followed the flake out left and joined the "obvious" line of off-route bolts. Not my best day of route finding. By staying on route next time, it will be like my first time!

Just did the route - there are 5 real protection bolts total on pitch 4. And the one pretty useless and not necessary rivet.

The climbing is pretty mellow with nice rock. I liked the first pitch best as it actually makes you think in a few places. As mentioned above this pitch is perfectly reasonable as a long pitch to the tree if you don't put pro in way to the left on the ledge. The crack on the second pitch is pretty but over in like two moves of super positive liebacking. You can get small brass nuts in on the first part of the 4th. I think the "5.8" bulge on the 4th pitch is the crux of the climb.

If you get to a cliff on the descent you went down too soon - go back up a move east a little more.